My Brilliant Career

Author: Franklin, Miles

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 30 January 2025 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Penguin Clothbound Classics' series.

Hardback | 272 pages
205 x 139 x 23 | 386g

The beloved Australian classic, published in a stunning Penguin Clothbound Classics edition for the first timeMiles Franklin’s debut novel follows the vivacious and rebellious sixteen-year-old Sybylla Melvyn – closely modelled on Franklin herself – as she fights to break free of restrictive bush life. Growing up on her parents’ outback farm, Sybylla is desperate to read, write, sing and achieve great things. Yet her aspirations for a ‘brilliant career’ are persistently thwarted, first by the arduous demands of rural family life, and later by the shackles of a proposed conventional marriage to the wealthy Harold Beecham. With only her brilliant, conflicted mind to guide her, Sybylla is forced to define a life on her own terms.

My Brilliant Career is acclaimed for capturing the spirit of Australia at the turn of the twentieth century. The struggles of its fiery, precocious protagonist shine a light on the emergent women’s rights and suffrage movement during this period, and memorably evoke the intensity of youth.